Greater New Orleans

TEXTILE EXPERT RESTORES FABRICS AND MEMORIES

STAFF PHOTO BY ELLIS LUCIATextile restoration expert Bryce Reveley has had plenty of work since Hurricane Katrina, helping restore heirlooms that hold memories for the people who own them.

By Molly ReidStaff writer Saturday, December 15, 2007

THE ARTIST: Bryce ReveleyTHE CRAFT: Textile restorationYEARS IN THE TRADE: 35WHY SHE DOES IT: 'I like the challenge. It's problem-solving, ' Reveley says.

Textile restoration expert Bryce Reveley seems to function on a perfect synergy of right and left brain activity. Spend some time at Gentle Arts, her Uptown workshop, and as she sorts through racks of fine silks and delicate linens, two intertwined visions of her begin to emerge: One is the meticulous scientist, the master of stain removal, the auction-house appraiser jet-setting monthly to New York. The other is the medieval heroine and Southern belle who plays the harp, makes lace by night and repairs the moldy remnants of New Orleans' most precious objects.

"We deal with a lot of sentiment, and sometimes a lot of guilt. 'This is my grandmother's quilt. Can you fix this hole in it where my dog chewed it?' " Reveley said. The quilt is someone's past in peril, but it is also just a cloth with a hole in it. That's where Reveley seems to find her passion: in the mix of scientific and sentimental rigors of her work.

And the need for such a balance could not be greater than in New Orleans. Over the past two years, she has restored countless heirloom wedding gowns, World War II uniforms, tablecloths, christening gowns and even Rex livery medallions ravaged in the flood. For some clients, those objects were the only things they tried to salvage after everything else was piled on the curb. "It's the only thing they have left, " she said.

Plenty of business

Reveley, who had evacuated to Assumption Parish, began receiving desperate calls from residents after the storm. She reopened her shop in October 2005 to meet the growing demand, and has been swamped ever since.

"We've seen every color of mold there is, " Reveley said.

And for every color in the mold rainbow, Reveley has a solution. The first step, she said, begins with the homeowners and how they treat the textile until it is brought in to her workshop. The best way to offset permanent mold or mildew damage, she said, is to spray the item with original-scent Lysol. After a mildewed item is sprayed, keep it in the freezer in a plastic bag; that will make it easier to flake off the mildew, she said.

STAFF PHOTO BY ELLIS LUCIAReveley holds a piece of damaged antique embroidery in need of repair.

She subjects the textile to prolonged soakings in a water table, a large tray filled with all-natural cleaning solutions. She can patch almost any cloth, but when it comes to getting out a tough stain, restraint and caution are the name of the game.

"The caveat is, though, that sometimes it's just not going to come out, " Reveley said. "But I try to start with a positive approach."

Developing a passion

Reveley grew up around handy women who knew how to mend and make fine cloth, but did not become interested in textiles until she took a lace-tatting course in her 30s, while pregnant with her first daughter. By the time her second daughter was born, the hobby had become a passion. Raising her two young girls during the day, she would make lace at night, the sound of the clacking bobbins weaving a nighttime serenade.

"It was very soothing and it was musical, " said Reveley, who plays harp in the local Medieval and Renaissance music ensemble Musica da Camera.

The turning point that moved Reveley into the professional textile world came when a colleague on her church's altar guild asked if she could re-create an heirloom tablecloth that had been destroyed. While she had the technical chops to make a flawless copy of the cloth's pattern, she could not match its natural yellowish tint. She began experimenting with different dying and color-removal techniques, and the scientist in her was piqued.

In 1981, Reveley took weeklong courses in textile conservation and lace identification from the American Institute of Textile Arts in Boston, and, when her children were older, spent three summers in London earning a certificate from the University of Textiles Conservation.

"I learned a tremendous amount, " she said.

STAFF PHOTO BY ELLIS LUCIALeigh Reveley works with her mother Bryce in the fabric restoration shop.

Reveley opened Gentle Arts in 1983, first running it out of her house and later moving to a workshop on Jena Street. She now shares a building, also on Jena Street, with Arts Conservatory Inc., which restores flat textiles and metal pieces. Following in her mother's footsteps, Reveley's daughter, Leigh, earned a degree in conservation from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and now works alongside her mother.

Jack of many trades

Though Reveley calls New Orleans home and has remained here despite a significant number of out-of-state clients, she is a regular textile expert at Doyle New York auction house. She has appeared as an appraiser on the public television show "Antiques Roadshow" (the American Society of Appraisers created a textile appraisal license for her), and has even served as an expert witness in dry-cleaning litigation cases. The variety, she said, is what keeps her sane.

"I'd go nuts if I had to work on the same thing every day, " she said.

Her left-brain knowledge of textiles often informs her right-brain appreciation of her clients' stories, because she can apply her forensic expertise to understand more about a piece's ancestry than its owners do.

"That's what this is all about: dealing with people's memories, " she said. "I love the stories."

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Molly Reid can be reached at mreid@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3448.